


...We're Together

by RainySteve



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-26 06:29:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16676353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainySteve/pseuds/RainySteve
Summary: Percy and Annabeth finally get a moment to catch their breath and look back on the war they just won





	...We're Together

**Author's Note:**

> rosyredlipstick on tumblr was my beta for this

Annabeth liked to watch Percy sleep. They were in his cabin, and she’d woken up first. He was laying on his stomach, arm cascading down the bed and drool as ever present. She watched him and absentmindedly started memorizing every single detail of his face in that moment. She’d done the same at the stables back in the Argo II and even when they were in Rome, watching him talk through dinner. She’d only been able to catch half of what he’d said because she was so terrified that he’d vanish. She couldn’t afford to look away. And then Tartarus. He was dying and she kept looking back at Bob and Percy just looked so frail and small. They were only sixteen at the end of the day.

       She liked to look at him because she was so scared of blinking and finding that he was gone.

_He’s here. We’re here_. It didn’t feel real.

      Percy started to wake under her gaze. He stretched and quickly wiped the drool of his chin. Then he finally noticed her, staring intently at him, and paused. She looked almost frozen in her spot on the bed across from him. “Hey,” he said, “how long have you been awake?”

      Annabeth didn’t answer which made Percy worry. She was looking at him weird. He threw the blankets off him and walked towards her. “Hey,” he tried again. Sitting beside her, “You okay?” She nodded but didn’t look away. He smiled shyly in return because he wasn’t used to her staring at him like this. “What’s wrong?”

       She tried to tell him she was fine but she found that there was a knot in her throat.  _He’s here he’s here he’s here_. Annabeth reached out to cup his face, to trace his dark eyebrows, ease the little crease in between them that formed when he worried.  _He’s here he’s here he’s here._  He was so familiar. He was so new.

        When you miss someone you exhaust any memories you have of them. You revisit your favorite ones so much that, in time, the details become hazy. Annabeth liked to remember one particular moment in the beach, back when they were fourteen or maybe barely fifteen, during those months Percy had been missing. She would try to drown out the panicked voices in her head with his laughter. She remembered Grover had said something that had made them both laugh, but she didn’t remember what. She remembered that was the first time she’d noticed how much deeper his voice had gotten. She remembered how he’d said her name. She remembered because that was the first time that terrifying thought had first popped in her head:  _I love him._

When she finally got to see him again, he said her name different. It wasn’t bad, it just surprised her. All this time she’d been remembering the feeling instead of the actual sound of his voice, she’d made up the cadence of it because it had become a hazy detail. But it was still so familiar to her that she couldn’t imagine why she’d thought it sounded anything but the way it did in the first place.

“Annabeth?” She still couldn’t tell him, couldn’t explain, why this simple moment had floored her. He kept searching her face for any clue as to what was wrong.  _Nightmares? Panic attack?_ She didn’t know herself. Annabeth hadn’t taken her hand from his face, she pulled him closer. He was all around her, beneath her touch, against her forehead, pressed to her leg. He’s here he’s here he’s here.

He was right there, so why was she so scared?

Percy touched her hand, the one resting against his face. She could tell the intensity of her eyes had made him nervous. And she laughed. She saw his eyes widen in shock and confusion and laughed harder. Percy tried to rub the last of sleep out of his eyes, totally confused by what was happening “What the hell, Annabeth?” He grinned, a bit relieved, but when he looked closer he noticed she was crying.

Finally she said: “You’re here.”

“Yeah?”

Annabeth shook her head. “No, Percy,” she told him, “you are here.” Not in Rome or in Athens, or in Tartarus. He was home and he was going to live and she was there too.

His face softened. He seemed to finally understand. Percy pulled Annabeth into a hug and allowed himself to believe what she’d said. He held her tightly against him, probably too tight, but found that he couldn’t loosen his grip in case she slipped away. “I know. I missed you.”

“You didn’t even remember me, Seaweed Brain.”

“I did. How do you think I survived?”

She laughed because he was cheesy, as always, and he kissed her because he’d promised himself he’d never miss a chance to ever since that day in the lake. “I thought I’d made you up,” she confessed, pulling away just for a moment, “I thought I was crazy and that you weren’t real.”

“I’m real,” he promised, “are you?”

“Yes.”

It might’ve seemed foolish to anyone else, but they’d been in survival mode too long. The number one thought in their heads had been war and surviving and when it got too bad they reached for one another. There was no time for contemplation. Worst of all was the almost absolute certainty that they wouldn’t make it. Then all they could do was comfort and reach for the other when they ran out of bravery. Annabeth had convinced herself they would die in Tartarus, she’d even prepared her mind. She wasn’t thinking about his laughter then or the way he said her name. She was forcing the air in and out of her lungs and anticipating when she wouldn’t be able to anymore, and they were squeezing their hands in order to brace themselves for when the time came. To be brave enough to see him perish if it came to it, but comforted by the knowledge that she would soon follow. Together, that was enough to survive for just a little bit longer, as long as necessary but not more.

Percy pulled them back into his bed, no longer worried after understanding what her mind was doing. He let her look at him as he dozed off again. Annabeth noticed how he never let go of her, and how every now and then he’d squeeze her hand or run his fingers through her hair. His own way of making sure  _she_  was still there.

Annabeth wondered what twelve-year-old Percy and twelve-year-old Annabeth would think of them now. If they’d like their future. But she was that little girl still, taller and battle-scarred and Gods knew ten times as angry, and she knew she’d choose this messed-up future anyways because it led back to this moment. Right there in cabin three, fifteen minutes away from Katie Gardner interrupting them while she was making her rounds for cabin inspections, barely faced by Annabeth holding a finger to her mouth and nodding her head slightly to the right, simultaneously telling her Percy was sleeping and to keep her presence there a secret. Little Annabeth would be terrified of facing all the monsters and losing all those friends just as present Annabeth had been and still was. Maybe that would never change, but all the courage she needed and didn’t know she had was in there. And, if she ever needed more, that’s what her best friend was for.


End file.
